Pregnenolone & DHEA - to Supplement or Not?

Pharma / TRT Testosterone Replacement
1

I am 47 yo. I have been on TRT for over a year. Currently, I’m doing test Cyp 34mg eod, Arimidex .1875mg eod with T shot. Hcg 300IU eod on off days from shot. I am currently adjusting my Arimidex dose to get e2=22 which was under control until a month ago when I started Hcg.

Hcg has helped mood a lot but still some room for improvement. Room for improvement with cognitive function and memory too. Though, I have come along way cognitively and memory wise since starting TRT. It’s hard to imagine how I existed before - memory and cognition were shot along with irritability depressed mood + lots and lots of anxiety. This has been helped by TRT and more so with Hcg. There is still room for improvement however.

Most current labs within the last 2 weeks taken as trough levels right before my T & Arimidex dose.

Estradiol 40 pg/ml (<= 47 pg/ml)
Test 751 ng/dL (300-890ng/dL)
DHEAs 70.5 ug/dL. (71.6-375.4)
Pregnenolone < 10 ng/dL

I am wondering if I should be supplementing with Pregnenolone &/or DHEA and if so what dose?

PS my endocrinologist said” that is (getting DHEAs & Pregnenolone measured) completely meaningless nonsense.dont get things measured”

I welcome thoughts/ advice

Thanks
David

2

DHEA 25mg oral from vitamin shelves in USA would be good. DHEA is made in the adrenals pregnenolone–>DHEA. Pregnenolone was low for me, but with creams or oral I did not respond/absorb so gave that up.

With TRT and shutdown, before hCG, pregnenolone and DHEA declined as one might expect. hCG prevents some of that.

Low DHEA can be pointing to adrenal insufficiency which might be from adrenal fatigue and lab work ‘AM Cortisol’ done at 8AM or 1 hour after waking up would be instrumental.

DHEA, fish oils, oral pregnenolone, Vit-D3 should never be taken with high fiber foods. So no cheerios or oat-meal. Better with a meal higher in fats where the fats will carry these fat loving molecules through the gut wall to blood stream.

DHEA does have important roles in the body that are not very well understood. DHEA-S is predictive of survival rates after a heart attack. So are T levels.

You could have low thyroid function, see ‘oral body temperatures’ below.

Please read the stickies found here: About the T Replacement Category - #2 by KSman

  • advice for new guys - need more info about you
  • things that damage your hormones
  • protocol for injections
  • finding a TRT doc

Evaluate your overall thyroid function by checking oral body temperatures as per the thyroid basics sticky. Thyroid hormone fT3 is what gets the job done and it regulates mitochondrial activity, the source of ATP which is the universal currency of cellular energy. This is part of the body’s temperature control loop. This can get messed up if you are iodine deficient. In many countries, you need to be using iodized salt. Other countries add iodine to dairy or bread.

KSman is simply a regular member on this site. Nothing more other than highly active.

I can be a bit abrupt in my replies and recommendations. I have a lot of ground to cover as this forum has become much more active in the last two years. I can’t follow threads that go deep over time. You need to respond to all of my points and requests as soon as possible before you fall off of my radar. The worse problems are guys who ignore issues re thyroid, body temperatures, history of iodized salt. Please do not piss people off saying that lab results are normal, we need lab number and ranges.

The value that you get out of this process and forum depends on your effort and performance. The bulk of your learning is reading/studying the suggested stickies.

3

Low energy often means that the mitochondria in your cells are not making enough ATP, the source of energy for your cells. Thyroid fT3 regulates the mitochondria as part of the body’s temperature control loop as a permissive hormone. CoQ10 enables this activity and a CoQ10 deficiency can lead to free radical damage of the mitochondria. There are other essential nutrients as well. CoQ10 deficiency can occur in some people with use of Statin drugs to control cholesterol. In those few cases there can be muscle pain/weakness and a persistent cough as heart muscle weakness then creates the same mechanical dysfunction as congestive heart failure [cough from high back pressure in lungs and fluid leakage].

4

Honestly, you have to be careful with that stuff. My pregnenolone was always low so I supplemented with it and felt MISERABLE!!! I don’t know how to describe it but felt like I was crawling out of my skin. I have low end t3 and t4 and had a bit of brain fog and fatigue issues. It actually turned out to be from diet and too much caffeine. Even though I “ate healthy” dairy and gluten was irritating me mentally. Supplementing with just 50mg of pregnenolone ended up converting to progesterone and sent mine 3x higher than it should be within a week. Be careful.